I Almost Do
by rippingbutterflywings
Summary: Clary Fray has been in a relationship with Simon Lewis long enough to think she wants to spend the rest of her life with him. However, when the day comes, will she be ready to say "I do"? One-shot. A/U.


_Hi guys! I haven't uploaded a new story/one-shot in forever so I thought I'd do that now. I've been trying to write this one for about three weeks, but school has been taking up a lot of my time as of late and I just got around to finishing it. I'm really, really sleepy right now, and there might be a lot of mistakes on this thing, but oh well. Thanks to maxwaylandgrey as usual for exisiting and for listening to me rant about the pointlessness of geometry nearly every single day. Thanks to all of you guys for reading! I hope you like it. :) xx_

* * *

Clary paced back and forth, her gaze avoiding the dress that was spread out in her bed. It was white, the color of snow, and long, long enough so she could trip and fall—but she tried not to think about that, about all the ways the day could go wrong, because her mind was full of different ideas that sped through at a thousand miles an hour. She couldn't make anything of the thoughts, because, when she tried to grasp one of them, her stomach would fill with the butterflies that did not make her feel good, the ones that told her that this was a mistake, that she didn't know if this was what she wanted.

She could easily ignore that, though. The man she was about to marry was the one for her. He loved her with all of his heart, and she could do nothing but feel the same things back. He was her best friend, the one who made her smile and laugh and, at times, even cry—though not intentionally. Simon would never do such a thing. He wanted only her happiness.

She bit her fingernails and then cursed herself. Isabelle, her best friend, her maid of honor, had spent nearly two hours getting Clary's nails to be perfect. At the thought of her maid of honor, Clary wondered if she could call her. Isabelle wasn't supposed to meet her for another two hours, but she needed her best friend more than anything. Before she could make herself back out, Clary reached into the front pocket of her bag and dialed Isabelle's number.

"Clary!" Isabelle's voice was loud and bright and full of the enthusiasm the bride-to-be lacked. "How are you doing?"

"I'm okay," she said, biting her lip. "Um, can you—can you meet me at the church?"

"What, right now?" Isabelle couldn't help but sound astonished.

"Yes. Please," Clary added with a hint of desperation, hoping her best friend would understand the gravity of the situation without having Clary explain it over the phone.

"Sure, I'll meet you there in half an hour. I just have to get my dress and makeup set and all that," Isabelle said, and, by the sound of it, she was already moving.

"I'll see you then." Clary hung up the phone before her friend could ask any more questions.

She continued to stare at her dress. Her wedding dress, which she picked out with the help of her mother and Isabelle, was beautiful. She had wanted nothing but to wear it as she walked down the aisle, but now, when the wedding was so close, only a few hours away, she couldn't imagine wearing it. She tried to imagine her future with Simon, tried to imagine them in a house with kids running around and playing and calling them their mommy and daddy and she couldn't. She tried—she tried _so hard_—but couldn't imagine it. She couldn't see the picture she was supposed to see.

Isabelle showed up just before Clary lost her mind. She had her baby blue dress in one hand and a massive bag in the other, and her black hair was up in a ponytail, and she wore a striped shirt and high wasted jeans the color of her hair and heels that probably made her over six feet tall.

"Clary." Isabelle stopped dead in her tracks and took a good, long look at her best friend, and Clary could just feel her putting the pieces together. "What's going on?"

Clary tried so hard not to cry. She said, "I don't know what to do."

"I don't understand," Isabelle said, her eyebrows pressed close together.

Her best friend took a deep breath and said, "I think I'm making a mistake."

"_Clary," _Isabelle said, and her tone was a sort of warning, but Clary shook her head.

"Listen to me, Izzy," she said, willing her voice to stay together, to not break and fall apart. "I've been here since six in the morning and I'm tired as hell, but I couldn't sleep because I was nervous, and then I tried to list the reasons why I love Simon. Why I want to marry him. You know, the little things. I've been up since six in the morning, like I said, trying to figure these reasons out, and trying to figure out what love means, and I don't think that this—whatever this is—is love. I mean, it is, but it's not the kind of love you die for and give your life away for."

"So you don't think you're in love with the man you're about to marry?" Isabelle raised her eyebrows. "Do you understand how that sounds, Clary?"

"Yes!" Clary exclaimed, raking a hand through her already messy hair. "Yes, I know. But it's not like I can control how I feel. I tried to picture us in a house and with our children running around and I just—I couldn't see it, Izzy, and I'd really appreciate it if you could understand, or at least tried to. You're my best friend." Her voice finally cracked at the end of that sentence, and she wiped away her tears and stared at the ground. How had she gotten to this point? She was sure—so sure—that Simon was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

After what seemed like a couple of agonizing years, Isabelle responded. "Okay. Okay, yeah, I get it. What are you going to tell Simon, though?" When she was done speaking, Clary's friend looked positively worried for Simon's emotional well-being, a worry which Clary shared and had thought about all throughout the course of the morning, of course.

"I want to talk to him," Clary said, "but I don't know what to say."

"If you want to find something that'll help it feel better, it won't. He'll still feel like his heart has been torn apart, but he'll get his shit together soon. You just—you might lose him for some time, and you might feel guilty, because you _will _break his heart. However," she added, and Clary was sure that she couldn't take any more of her friend's words, "if you stay with him feeling like you do, neither of you will be happy."

Clary knew that her best friend was right, and yet—could she do that to the boy she loved? She may not have been in love with him, but she just knew that seeing him falling apart would kill her.

Isabelle's phone rang suddenly, making both of them slightly jump. Isabelle took a quick glance at Clary and, just like that, she knew it was Simon on the other end. At Clary's nod, Isabelle answered. "Hey," she said, making her voice sound upbeat and happy because, after all, her best friend was getting _married. _

"Um, yeah, we're here." She let out a string of nervous laughter after a pause. "I'm sure you look amazing. Hey, Si, could you come here really quickly? It'll just take fifteen minutes, I promise."

_What the hell is she doing? _Clary thought with her eyes far too wide and her jaw on the floor. What did Isabelle think this was? Easy? Simple? Something her altruistic sense, given to her by her mother, could fix so that Clary wouldn't break Simon's heart?

"Isabelle," Clary said.

"Clarissa Adele Fray," her best friend replied, walking over to Clary with her phone on one hand and the other hand free. With it, she shook Clary by placing her hand on her shoulder. "You're my best friend in the whole wide world. I love you, Fray, and you better not forget that." She took a deep breath. "As your best friend, I can't let you get away with this. If I hadn't told Simon, and if I weren't making you confront him, you would have gotten married."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Clary replied quietly.

"There's everything wrong with that," she said. "You don't love Simon the way you'd love the man you'd be marrying. I see the way you look at him. You'd be happy enough, but you wouldn't be in love, and that's a waste."

"I know, I know," Clary said to her. "But what am I supposed to say to him when he shows up with his ridiculous innocence and his love for me? I'm empty-handed, and I don't know how to tell him that."

Isabelle sighed. "I don't know, either. But, you know, he'll take it badly either way. I don't want him to get hurt, Clary, because you know I love Si," she said, and she sounded genuinely hurt at the thought of Simon's heart shattering. "Anyway, I'll be here if you need me."

"I need you," Clary said with a pouty face. "Don't leave."

"Don't be a baby," Isabelle said with a roll of her eyes. Quickly after her words left her mouth, she was gone.

Time passed by slowly, yet quickly. Clary counted up the times she had said she loved Simon and pretended well enough to mean it in a more than friendly way. She had gotten up to fifty-seven when she heard someone knock softly on her door.

"Simon?" she called out, tremendously scared and a little bit curious.

"Yeah," he said, and she could feel the smile on his face. "Can I come in? Or are you wearing your dress? I mean, you know, there's that whole thing with bad luck if the groom sees the bride with her wedding dress—"

"You can come in," Clary interrupted, unable to hear more of his rant. "I'm decent."

And so he did. He came in, wearing a t-shirt under a dark hoodie and jeans, breaking her heart into a million pieces. Was that what it would feel like for him? Or would be ten thousand times worse?

"Hey," she said, sitting down, and motioning for him to sit down in front of her. He frowned, immediately sensing that something was wrong.

"Are you okay?" Simon asked, following her lead.

Clary shook her head, telling herself to be strong, to be okay, as she prepared herself for what was coming. "Si, you know I love you, right?"

He nodded. "And I love you too, Clary."

"But," she said, "that's just it. I love you because you're my best friend, and you're there for me when I need you, and you're comfortable and safe and I've known you for my entire life, and I have you memorized like the back of my hand, and you're _Simon._" Clary grew exasperated as she searched for ways to prove her point. "You're Simon, and I love you, but I'm not in love with you."

It was there. She had said it, but not all of it. The rest remained implied, something for him to figure out while he thought his decisions over—his feelings over—along with her. He didn't seem to understand. She thought he would scream, or cry, or storm out, but this was far worse.

He wasn't doing anything at all.

After what seemed like a million years, he said, "So you're not in love with me, like you've been saying you were all this time."

Clary nodded.

"And you don't—you can't get married."

She nodded again, feeling immediately guilty.

"Because you don't love me."

"I'm sorry," she said, trying not to cry. "I tried not to think about it, because you make me happy, Si. You do. But that's it. You make me happy. You don't give me butterflies or make me go crazy, and I thought that was okay, because I was going to be happy either way, only I didn't understand that it was a different kind of happy, and I was missing out on an entirely different kind of happiness. So I thought to myself that I couldn't get married and be a conformist if I could do more. And yeah, it goes against everything I want and believe in, and it goes against my rule of never breaking your heart, but I need to do this." By this point, Clary was already in tears. She couldn't help it.

She could see his heart falling apart by just taking a quick look at the sadness in his eyes. She wished she could undo all of it, but it was too late for that. All she could do was shuffle her feet awkwardly and stare at them as the drops that fell from her eyes hit her bare skin.

She heard him take a deep breath. And, then, "Clary, I don't think you're selfish." She looked up at his words, looking confused. "I'm not gonna lie to you: it hurts. A lot. I love you. However," he added, "I get it. You need to be the kind of happy that satisfies you, and I'm not the right person for that."

"God, I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Simon said, not attempting to smile, yet not looking completely miserable, an act she knew was for her sake. "Clary, you're my best friend. I mean, yeah, I'm going to wanna take some time off to cool down, but it doesn't mean it'll last forever."

"You're being surprisingly understanding about this," she replied, unable to find the right words to thank him for not making the situation any worse.

"No," he said, "I'm not."

"We should tell people not to come."

"Tell Isabelle to take care of that, if you want," Simon said. "I don't think either one of us wants to deal with that right now."

Clary nodded, her red curls bouncing as her head moved. "Agreed." She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Si."

"Don't," he said, his voice breaking. "I'm trying hard to keep my shit together because I know it hurts and because you're my best friend, but that doesn't mean that I'm okay with you right now."

"I get it."

"I'm gonna take off," Simon said, shoving his hands into his pockets as if he didn't know what to do with them. He looked close to breaking. "I'll see you around, Clary Fray."

"See you around, Simon Lewis."

And, just like that, it was over.

* * *

Clary sat by herself, waiting for Isabelle to show up. As of that very moment, when her eyes landed on page seventy-eight of _Great Expectations, _which she was required to read for her Lit class, her friend was officially half an hour late. She took a sip of her coffee, nervous.

Six months before, she had almost gotten married. Looking back, she wished she hadn't gone through with the relationship in the first place. She missed Simon—her best friend, ex-fiancée, and the boy whom she loved in a strictly friendly way. She hadn't talked to him since the day she broke their engagement off, and she had felt horrible every single day that passed since.

"Sorry I'm late," said an all-too familiar female voice, sounding breathless and positively exhausted. "But I can explain."

"Please do," Clary said, watching Isabelle as she sat in front of her.

"Remember Jace?"

"Yeah, your brother."

"Well, he's in town. I picked him up from the airport and left him at our apartment," Isabelle said with a sigh. "I don't know where else to have him stay."

Clary took a sip of her coffee. "I thought Jace was travelling all over the world."

"He was," her friend said, looking over the menu. "But he wants to do something with his life now."

"How come?"

"I guess he grew tired of running."

Clary frowned. "What was he running from?"

"Himself, mostly," she said, shaking her head. "Jace always had a lot of questions, and no one gave him enough answers. So he ran."

"And now he's back."

"Yeah, he's back. The bastard got asked out twice already by some skanks. Of course, he said yes."

"To both of them?"

Izzy shrugged. "I guess he hasn't gotten laid in a while."

Clary snorted. "Yeah, well, neither have I, and you don't see me hooking up with every guy I see."

"Eh, I don't know," Isabelle said. "I don't think he wants to go out with those girls, but he wants to have something to do."

"Well, he's not gonna do it in my apartment—_our _apartment."

"Agreed." Isabelle ordered her food and then turned back to her best friend. "Honestly, I'm gonna have to talk to him about this."

"How long is he gonna stay with us?"

"I don't know yet, but at least a month."

Clary rolled her eyes. "It'll be a party."

Isabelle laughed and, after a while, sobered. She had something else, and Clary could tell. It was something important, something she didn't wanna talk about.

"Spill it, Lightwood."

"I've been talking to Simon for a while," Isabelle said. "And by a while, I mean three months."

Clary tried to register her friend's words, but she couldn't. She had been worrying sick about her former fiancée and, all this time, her best friend had been talking to him all the time. The worst part was that Isabelle knew how much Clary worried and how she felt about having broken up with him. She could have understood if it had been a few weeks, but three months? That was half the time they'd been apart. It was about twelve weeks, ninety-two days.

How could she have kept this from her?

"I know, Clary," she said before Clary could utter a word. "I know you're mad and I know you're wondering why, but let me explain."

Clary only raised her eyebrows—both of them, since she couldn't do the single eyebrow thing—and said, "Go ahead."

"I was going to tell you when it first happened," Izzy said. "But then we got to seriously talking. We had been best friends before, you know, but not like this. We talked about every personal thing that we could think of and I realized far too soon that I liked him, Clary, and not in the way I like you, and not in the way I like high-heels. I seriously liked him, and it scared me, feeling that way. So I decided not to tell you."

"So what changed your mind?"

"He said he felt the same way." Isabelle sighed contently. "And it felt so, so good. And I swear that I was the happiest I've been in a while until I realized that I'd have to tell you. That scared the crap out of me, Clary. And if you wanna tell me to not date him, then do so. I won't date him. I may like him, but I like you more."

Clary thought it over. Isabelle was her absolute best friend, and all Clary wanted in life was to see her happy. The same thing went for Simon, and if the two were happiest when they were with each other, then Clary had no business standing in between them, especially when she wasn't in love with Simon.

"I'm okay with it, Iz." At Clary's words, her friend's face lit up as she smiled brightly. "I'm still mad that you kept it a secret for so long, but I'm insanely happy for you and for him and I wish you the best. I hope that this works out."

"You're the best, Clarissa Adele Fray, and I love you too." They hugged awkwardly, with a massive table in between them, and then continued to eat their food as the sky turned dark.

* * *

Clary walked out of her bedroom the next morning with groggy eyes and a kind of crazy hair that looked like fire was sticking out of her head. She could smell pancakes from the moment she stepped out of her room, which was weird, since Isabelle couldn't cook for shit. As she neared the kitchen, she remembered everything that Isabelle had told her the day before.

Including that her extremely attractive brother was going to stay in their apartment for an indefinite amount of time.

Clary's eyes widened as he looked her over. She was wearing an oversized sweatshirt that barely reached the middle of her thighs, and her hair was a mess of fiery red curls. He, on the other hand, was not wearing a shirt, but he was wearing long pajama pants.

She let out a sigh and quickly got over the fact that he was taking her in as if he'd never seen her before.

"Hey, Jace," she said, coming up to him. "You're making pancakes."

"Well, we all know Izzy's shit in the kitchen, so I thought I'd give it a try."

"They don't smell burnt, so you're already doing a better job than my roommate." Clary examined the room as she realized that Isabelle was missing. "Speaking of, where is she?"

"She went out to get some groceries, and I'm pretty sure she has a class right after."

"Thank god I called in sick for my Lit class," Clary said, groaning while pouring herself some coffee. "I cannot get through _Great Expectations _in a weekend. It's boring me to death."

"I've never read it. Reading isn't really my thing," Jace said. "Can you pass me some plates?"

"Yeah." Clary got on her tiptoes to open the cabinet where the plates were located and successfully grabbed two plates from the pile. When her breakfast was served, she took some fruits and maple syrup and sat down. Jace sat in front of her, and they both tried not to look at each other as they ate. She couldn't stop picturing him shirtless, because, when she opened her eyes, he _was _shirtless.

It was a very odd experience.

"Izzy told me about the engagement," Jace said, looking her over once again. "You don't seem like the kind of girl to get married while in college."

"I'm not," Clary said, "which is why I'm not married."

"Isn't it weird that she's dating him now?"

"A little." She shrugged. "I don't have feelings for him anymore, so it doesn't matter very much."

"So you're the only single one in your group of friends."

"Pretty much. It kind of sucks."

"So I'll pick you up at seven, then."

She almost choked on her pancake. "_What?" _

"See, Izzy was going to set you up with a guy, and I was supposed to take some girl who I'm not really interested in, so let's make it less people and more interesting. I like you, Clary. I may not know you that much, but I know that you're smart, and you're funny, and you're kind of cute, and you're way too short, so I'm asking you out." Jace smiled simply, as if he had said something completely casual.

"And this event was gonna happen anyway?" asked Clary, wary.

He nodded. "Sadly."

"Where are we going?"

"She wants us to go to dinner, and her boyfriend wants movies, so they want to do both. I, however, want to go bowling."

"I haven't been bowling since high school, so bowling it is. Pick me up at seven, and don't be late." She took the last bite of her pancake and took her plate to the kitchen with a smile on her face. Once she washed her dishes, she walked past him again. "By the way," Clary told him, "I'm _not _way too short."

* * *

_Thank you for reading! Review and tell me what you think! xx_


End file.
